Would you rather speak out to defend a baby with Down syndrome or sign a petition to support a pedophile? In some Hollywood circles, the answer is simple, support the pedophile.
Let’s go back to 2009 when Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland. The United States asked for Polanski to be extradited to face trial for his 1977 statutory rape case. Hollywood united and Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Darren Aronofsky, Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, Jonathan Demme, Tilda Swinton, Wes Anderson, Pedro Almodovar, (I can go on all day) actually took time out of their busy schedules to prepare a petition demanding Roman Polanski’s freedom. But for some reason, no one in Hollywood can take five minutes out of their day to support Sarah Palin’s “right to choose” or condemn the abusive allegations and deplorable insults hurled against her 3-year-old boy’s disability.
While I can understand why so many people want to take down Sarah Palin (actually I can’t understand it, it just seems to be the way people start every negative commentary on Sarah Palin that goes too far) I have no idea why it is acceptable to make fun of disabled babies–or any babies for that matter. Just last week Wonkette, the award winning left-wing satirical waste-of-internet-space website, posted a smear piece on Sarah Palin that sunk to a new low. One of Wonkette’s contributor’s, Jack Stuef, directed his vitriol of Palin toward the most innocent of places. Not only did Stuef insinuate that Todd Palin slept with his daughter Bristol, he took the unique and deplorable approach of making fun of her son with Down syndrome…on his birthday.
This was a great opportunity for many in Hollywood to prove that they care about something other than themselves. Instead, they kept quiet. When people suggest that politicians remove any violent words from their political discourse then can we at least ask our comedians, talk show hosts and pundits to stay away from politician’s children–even if they really, really, really don’t like the politician.
The half-assed apology and eventual withdrawal of the post was not the result of an alliance of celebrities forming a pact to leave politician’s disabled children alone. Instead, a group of plain old Americans asked the advertisers to remove their ads from Wonkettes site. A lot of this was made possible by the #TrigsCrew on twitter.
To be fair, maybe Stuef thought it was okay. After all, he was not the first to stoop so low. In a promo for HBO’s “Real Time” Bill Maher joked, “While we were off, Sarah Palin agreed to do commentary at Fox News, which is actually very similar to her day job: talking to a baby with Down syndrome.” How can we forget when the comedian Louis C.K. stated, “when she [Palin] was on stage at the f—ing convention that just came out of her disgusting f—ing c—-… her f—ing retard-making c—…” Maybe if Hollywood started to shun these poor excuses for entertainment, then the “Jack Stuef’s” of the blogosphere would know not to go there.
But Stuef did go there, and in my book, there is no going back. Wonkette will prove they were never serious about their apology and let Stuef continue his cowardly attacks. This isn’t the first time they have used Trig’s disability to mock Sarah Palin. I’m glad to see that there are people who know that there is a line and it should never be crossed. Many American’s have standards and values. I would like to see Hollywood raise their standards and stick up for more than just the pedophiles
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.